Thursday, 21 March 2013

‘Never again’ to ‘always prevent’

The recent Halabja commemoration
proves that the ‘three Rs’ of remembrance, recognition and retelling are not
enough. ‘Never again’ must become ‘always prevent’.

‘From Denial To Recognition. From
Destruction To Construction. From Tears To Hope’ – proclaimed the posters at
Saturday’s ceremony commemorating the 25th anniversary of the Saddam Hussein
dictatorship’s barbaric use of chemical weapons against the Kurds in Halabja,
Iraqi Kurdistan.

The memorial event, on the outskirts
of that tragic but unbowed town, was held in a vast marquee filled with more
than 5,000 mainly Kurds but also delegations from around the world. Among them
many children, bedecked in beautiful traditional costumes, their mothers
holding them close, their fathers proudly wearing their Peshmerga fighter
uniforms. It was impossible not to contemplate that on March 16, 1988, a
similar number of souls had been obliterated at this place, dying in
excruciating agony from the cocktail of mustard and nerve gas that Saddam
rained down on them, having first dropped conventional bombs to blow out the
windows and leave no refuge. 5,000 lives erased in the blink of an eye, as if
they were an infestation of vermin, not human beings. And this only a tiny part
of a wider genocide: over 4,000 Kurdish villages bulldozed; men, women and
children herded into concentration camps before being shot in the desert;
182,000 murdered in 1987 and 1988 alone.

Waiting to enter the memorial event at Halabja

In the face of such cruelty, it is no
wonder that the conference on the 25th anniversary of the genocide against the
Kurds in Iraq, held last Thursday in Erbil, the booming capital of the
Kurdistan Regional Government, heard of the need for remembrance, for
recognition of these crimes as genocide and for the retelling of this tragic
story to future generations – the ‘three Rs’ of a conventional approach to
genocide. Turkish photographer, Ramazan Öztürk, who captured the iconic images,
said his experiences on that day had made him feel ‘ashamed to be a human’ and
that ‘it was not just Halabja that died but the conscience of humanity’.
Academics spoke of labyrinthine legal obstacles to prosecuting perpetrators.
Kurdish ministers thanked the parliaments of countries which have recognised
these crimes as genocide (the British House of Commons did this in an historic
debate on February 28). Children of victims danced and sang, bringing both the tragedy
of their loss and the hope they represent into stark relief.

The countryside en route to Halabja

But something big was missing. A
gaping hole at the heart of the debate reflecting the moral vacuum at the heart
of the world’s conscience. Those at the conference hoped that the ‘three Rs’ of
remembrance, recognition and retelling will be enough to prevent another
genocide against them. The clarion call went up: ‘it must never happen again.’
Yet despite the Genocide Convention, the Nuremburg Trials, the documentation,
the education, the International Criminal Court, the victims’ testimonies, the
evidence, even the heart-wrenching tragedy of Anne Frank’s diaries, decent
people and governments of the world, the kind who would solemnly nod their head
in agreement with ‘never again’, have not actually taken action to give
power to these heart-felt words. Cambodia, Bosnia, Iraqi Kurdistan,
Rwanda and Darfur show that the three Rs are necessary but not sufficient
to prevent future genocides.

Wreath-laying ceremony

While many of the world’s governments
want to prevent genocide, they almost never act to achieve this aim. This
despite most being signatories to the UN Convention on the Prevention and
Punishment of Genocide which is explicitly designed to compel them to do just
that. Remember that in 2004, the then secretary of state Colin Powell described
the Darfur events as genocide, yet still the US chose not to act. If
governments, like our own, continue to refuse to define these crimes as
genocide, we might surmise that this is because they want to avoid fueling any
belief on the part of the Kurds or any other persecuted people, that they will
actually come to their aid in the future. This moral weakness is a
by-product of an international system predicated on nation states’ right to
sovereignty. In our world, sovereignty trumps morality, time and time again.

Students Union office in Halabja

Governments have chained up their
good intentions within the prison of international legal jurisprudence. No
oppressed people can take comfort from a system which guarantees in the
Universal Declaration of Human Rights that ‘everyone has the right to life,
liberty and security of person’, yet is governed by a Security Council which
prefers inaction in the face of genocide, which preferences the rights and
interests of dictators and so-called ‘great powers’ over the self-evident human
rights of ordinary people. Iraqi Kurdistan is littered with what results when
when tyrants are emboldened: mass graves and empty buildings such as the ‘Red
House’, a torture complex in Sulaimaniya in which some victims were drowned in
a pit of excrement.

At the 'Red House' in Sulaimaniya

Today’s genocide victims deserve our
respect and assistance in their demands for the three Rs and the world must
continue to develop legal mechanisms and norms, in a noble attempt create the
conditions when the international community will prevent genocide, such as the
Responsibility to Protect (R2P) framework. Yet as Syria shows, R2P
has no real force. To prevent there being any future victims of genocides
as yet unleashed, there must be a commitment to take whatever action is
necessary and practically possible, including military intervention. We keep
remembering that humans are capable of untold evil. We keep declaring that we
must not let this happen again. The most important thing to remember is that
remembering is not enough and does not in itself prevent genocide. We must
promise the Kurds that we will protect them from any future aggression.
Individual countries must work with their allies to take action to stop
genocide in its tracks whenever it occurs. It is worthy, but clearly not enough
to establish tribunals after a genocide which prosecutes a tiny number of
people. ‘Never again’ must become ‘always prevent’.

Image from inside the museum at Halabja

Some rare, grainy footage was shown
at the conference of men, women and children herded into concentration camps
before being ‘disappeared’ in the desert. The Kurds in this video were
indistinguishable from the Bosnian Muslims in films of the Screbrenica
massacre, or the European Jews at Auschwitz. These people could be any people,
anywhere, at any time. They will not be the last ghostly images on
such films unless we take action. If you don’t agree, take a trip to the
safe, democratic and prosperous region of Iraqi Kurdistan. Talk to the living
victims and then reassess whether you could sleep at night having chosen to walk
on by. The ghosts of genocide won’t let you.

————————————————————————————————————————

John Slinger is a strategic communications consultant,
Labour Party member, chair of Pragmatic Radicalism, and a fellow of the
Humanitarian Intervention Institute. John visited Iraqi Kurdistan in March as
part if a British delegation to a conference and ceremonies commemorating the
25th anniversary of the Kurdish genocide in Iraq. Whilst working for Ann Clwyd
MP he accompanied her to Baghdad in 2005 and 2006 on visits in her capacity as
the prime minister’s special envoy to Iraq on human rights. He tweets @JohnSlingerand blogs at http://slingerblog.blogspot.com

Tuesday, 5 March 2013

Published in the Coventry/Warwickshire Telegraph on Monday 4 Marchhere.

I was raising money for Warwickshire charity, Carers Support Service, which runs Warwickshire Young Carers Project (including supporting Rugby Young Carers). You can still donate here. Many thanks indeed!

Saturday, 2 March 2013

I appeared on the BBC's World Have Your Say programme on 'Does Intervention Work' on Monday 25 February video clip. It was broadcast on BBC World News on Friday 1 March.

It was also broadcast on World Service Radio on Monday (this is the full-length version of the debate). I mention the Saddam Hussein regime's genocide against Iraq's Kurds and the 25th anniversary of the chemical weapons attack on Halabja and argue against the views expressed on the night that Saddam staying in power would not have been such a bad thing.

You may be interested to know that the House of Commons held an historic debate on the 25th anniversary of the Kurdish genocide on Thursday 28 February.

Please sign the No 10 e-petition urging the UK Government to officially recognise the horrific crimes by Saddam and his regime against the Kurds in Iraq as genocide.